Monday, 30 December 2013

And where did the week-end go? I was going to get so much done..and didn’t. Just FARTed around. Friday I didn’t work on Adirondack Autumn much as I tried to get some housework done. Then Saturday, friends from out of town dropped by (boy was I glad I’d gotten some cleaning done). A quick shopping trip that some how ended at the LQS and a bunch of fabric coming home with me. Then I worked on a folded star hotpad I’d seen on a blog, with little success. I got the body of the pad done, just couldn’t get the binding to work. And Sunday I picked up an extra shift to pay for all that fabric. All of this to explain why my total for Clue 5 is ( insert drum roll here) 2 . Yup, T W O.
And you can probably see from the tray, none of the other clues are finished.
But at some point I did get all the blocks done for the framed nine patch. Since I only needed three once I found the stash of blocks already made this is not a big deal.
And today was skimpy on the sewing end again. Due to another Fabric Acquisition Road Trip. I think I mentioned about my friend gifting me some fabric a while back but I can’t find where or when that was posted. Anyhow, she phoned earlier in this month to say she had more for me if we could come in and pick it up. Much to and froing finally established today as the big meet up at her place of work where this fabric was going to be discarded. As in tossed to the curb. I was thinking a few boxes. Boy was I ever wrong. Here’s what we came home with. If it was all quilting fabric I would be turning cartwheels. However most was dress-making and tailoring , high end wool suitings, silks, linings. But we couldn’t leave it behind and wound up talking ourselves into taking most of it. My dear husband would say "but this is silk !" and I"d go "can't quilt silk" and yet it stayed in the "to keep" pile. Now we are faced with the daunting task of carrying it into the house and finding a place to store it all.

So now to link up with Bonnie and see what everyone else has gotten done. Bet it is more than two.

Monday, 23 December 2013

Here we are at week four and the mystery continues. There has been lots of speculation on F/B over the block layout. This is not my attempt to guess the layout, merely aiming for a more interesting picture than the stacks of finished units. I worked on a little bit of every clue Friday. Not as much done Sat & Sun as I was working at my day job. Very exciting times Sunday with the ice storm we experienced. Here at the house we hardly had any power interruption, a brief flicker if anything. However at work Sunday, just as we finished shift change report and headed out to start our morning of washing and dressing, the power went out and we switched over to the back-up generators. Which only give light and power to the hallways, not the patient’s rooms. After a brief scramble to ensure that those with air beds got juice for their beds ( extension cords from the hall plugs) and those with oxygen tanks got switched to their portable battery powered units, we proceeded to go about our business with flashlights and an hour later were feeding them a cold breakfast. Shortly after breakfast, the power was back. While working on these units I have been pondering what to do with the left-overs from the Scrappy Trips One of the downsides of doing this pattern is when cutting from yardage you can only get two 16” strips and then have a piece left of between 10- 12” depending on the width of fabric. As I was cutting I got to thinking that length gives enough for a nine patch.

This is the bin of strips. and my first project from them. These are framed nine patches from a pattern Bonnie posted back in te summer.My second idea is to do Boxy Stars that Bonnie just finished. Would have to add some neutrals as this bin is mostly brights, but as the neutrals in Boxy Stars are squares, that should be easy to do. I have a whole stash of 2.5” squares, will just pull all the lights from them and off we go with Leaders and Enders.Now I'm off to link up with Bonnie's Mystery Monday Link UP and see what everyone else has been doing.

Monday, 16 December 2013

My body is slow and stiff this morning, hopefully my mind is functioning better. So far I’ve dropped the curved washer from my rotary cutter ( and haven’t found it yet) and burnt the shape of my iron on the ironing board pad (forgot the iron was sitting face down when I turned on the power bar).

Enough of that, on to progress on Adirondack Autumn. I didn’t think I’d gotten much done until I assembled it all for a photo shoot.

Considering that I was only doing the clue one pieces as leader and enders, a good enough progress. The tray of cut pieces shows 30 orange and 30 neutral left to sew. In the plastic bins are the yellow and neutral squares for clue two and counting I see I’ve managed to mark 80 yellows for sewing, however the greens are still in strips in front. And the strips for clue three are stacked waiting further cutting.

Progress was made on the Scrappy Rocket Trips. One is almost finished quilting.

And number two is ready to sandwich.

I just need to splice some batting, it ended up 6” too narrow. Plus the two pink quilts were presented to pleased parents/grandparents.

The other Scrappy Trips is washed and ready to send out, but that’s enough pictures for today. Oh ok, here it is but don’t look at the mess in my kitchen

The mess is how I’ve been able to get so much done. Haven’t done any housework all week. Dear Hubby has been awesome with pitching in and helping ( including quilt holding) but I’ve promised everyone in the house that as soon as these two scrappy trips are finished a major clean-up will be done.

Monday, 9 December 2013

Well, here we go, another week over and what have we done? Not a lot on Celtic, but quite a lot on other projects.First the Celtic Solstice, although I was going to call mine Adirondack Autumn, I keep forgetting to refer to it that way.A grand total of 38 orange and 50 neutrals done and only 2 of the chevrons pieced. I’ve been using the orange and neutrals for leaders and enders of the Scrappy Trips project I have underway. Which now has a total of 26 done of the 48 blocks needed. Not very speedy progress. Especially considering I blithely assured the co-worker it would be ready next week. Time to ramp up the production line.So I have all the strips lined up ready to go, time to do some chain piecing. I’ve been too casual only doing one at a time. (stack at upper left is completed blocks bottom is strip sets ready to slice)On the edge of the table is another project that is almost finished, ready to sew down the binding. While downstairs, the first Scrappy Trips is finished being quilted and has one side left to hand sew on the binding. And in the washer as I type is the Pink Double 4 patch, all done.

Once these get finished, I can focus more on Adirondack Autumn. I haven’t even really started cutting Clue number two. What I did sew was pulled from the pre-cut 2” bin and a stack of yellow squares left over from previous projects. This is what I have so far before going into the fabrics pulled for Autumn. Obviously not enough variety so I will be cutting, there is only one yellow strip. But it was enough to get an idea of the block and that will do for now. Linking up with the rest of the Bonniaces at Quiltville

Monday, 2 December 2013

Here we are already at the Monday linky. How fast the weekend went. I couldn’t wait to get my pieces all cut before starting to sew, still have a few blue “recs” left to cut. I’ve sewn 25 neutrals and 12 orange.

Not enough done to really see the variety of the blues but here’s my idea of how they might go together.

And the main reason I have only sewn a few.

I finished the quilting on the Scrappy Trips, sewed the binding on the front and have been hand sewing it to the back.

Now to link up with Bonnie and see what every one else has been doing.

En Provence Mystery

Grand Illusion Mystery

About Me

After raising three children I went back to work caring for the elderly. Until I found Quiltville, I did one or two quilts a year, now I do one or two a month, started with baby quilts but have branched out to larger ones.